26 days out -- McCain launches an Ayers Web video calling Obama 'too risky for America' --TV AD IS PLANNED -- Obama to go after McCain mortgage program as a costly turkey

Good Thursday morning. Through sundown, it’s Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, for our Jewish brothers and sisters. G'mar Hatima tova: “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.” Politico’s Martin Kady II notes in The Huddle: “If you go to the Jerusalem Post Web site there will be no stories posted today in honor of the holiday.”

“Saturday Night Live” has a political special at 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC, after “The Office.” Rachel Maddow on “Jay Leno.”

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Time’s cover is Senator Obama, “WHY THE ECONOMY IS TRUMPING RACE,” with David Von Drehle on “HOW WORRIED WHITE VOTERS ARE TURNING TOWARD OBAMA.” Managing Editor Richard Stengel writes: “To get to the bottom of all this, Editor-at-large David Von Drehle—who makes his home in Kansas City—took off in his dented family minivan for a 750 mile trip across the center of Missouri. In general, David found a good number of blue-collar white voters who said they plan to vote for Obama because of the economy, and some who say they plan to vote against him because they disagree with his policies. But he found little evidence that race will be a determining factor either way.”

DRIVING THE DAY: OBAMA IS GOING AFTER McCAIN, in an ad and on the stump, for THE MORTGAGE-PURCHASE IDEA McCAIN SPRUNG AT THE DEBATE. Obama calls it a disaster of a mortgage plan that could put taxpayers on the hook for $300 billion.

Nicolle, to ABC’s Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America”: “Nobody in America sitting around the kitchen table … cares about a washed-up terrorist like Mr. Ayers, which he is. It's about telling the truth about your record. And if we can't trust Barack Obama to tell the truth about the guys in his neighborhood, who also happen to be domestic terrorists, who also happen to be people who have held events for him, how can we trust him to tell the truth about what he could do as president?”

Obama’s Robert Gibbs: “You heard a crazy answer right there from Nicolle. Let me address some of the things that Nicolle knowingly misstated, in another desperate and dishonest attack from the McCain campaign.”

WALLACE: “Do I look desperate?”

WALLACE, on NBC’s “Today”: “The point is he lied when he first talked about his association.”

Obama’s Bill BURTON, on Fox: “Even after all these reports, at the end of the day, their paths crossed a couple times. Did he know about his past when he went over to his house? No. When he found out about the terrible past, did he say the actions were detestable and deplorable? Absolutely.”

MORE GENEROUS TO FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS -- McCain made a change in his plan between Tuesday night and Wednesday, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers. The document posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.” So the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper. But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives. That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Obama gave for opposing the plan. A McCain campaign official explained: “That language was mistakenly included in the initial draft and it’s been corrected. It doesn’t reflect the intentions of the initiative, which necessitated the correction and the removal of the sentence. A simple mistake.”

ON THE ROAD – Politico’s Amie Parnes ‘Berries: “McCain and Palin hugged on the tarmac in Allentown, Pa. (Her plane arrived moments after his.) Palin patted McCain on the back and said, ‘Good job last night, good job.’ Also, Meghan McCain, recovering from the flu, is also travelling with mom and dad today. She made a brief appearance in the press section to say hello. … We're playing chicken w the Obama plane on the runway. McCain plane just cut off O plane. Eat our dust hopemongers, reporters on plane shouted. … Dept of you can't make this stuff up: McCain's cardboard cutout fell down today on the plane. Face first. McCain staffers quickly ran to get duct tape to fix it.”

“ THE WORST DEBATE EVER,” by Politico’s John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei: “With the country at one of its most interesting — not to mention terrifying — moments in a generation, John McCain and Barack Obama met in Nashville for what was surely one of the dullest and least satisfying presidential debates in memory. … Place the gravity of the moment next to the blah-blah-blah artifice of the rhetoric and overall insubstantiality of the evening, and this is what you get: The worst presidential debate ever. The day after leaves behind a puzzle: How the hell did candidates manage to be so timid and uninspiring at a time when American troops are in two problematic wars, the world financial markets are in scary free fall and the Dow has lost 1,400 points since Oct. 1? This is a moment history rarely sees — and both men blew it. It was an odd reversal of the usual optics of power. Ordinarily, the national stage can take even life-size pols such as Michael Dukakis and imbue them with an outsize aura. Tuesday's debate was a look through the wrong end of the telescope: Men with fascinating biographies seemed conventional. The promise both men once offered of a new, less contrived and more creative brand of politics was a distant memory.

“Here is our appraisal of the factors behind the most disappointing presidential debate ever: The presidential debate commission’s rules are a scandal. … The candidates are stumped. … There was no independent on the stage. … Self-importance. … Obama and McCain both are men with large life stories, asking to lead the country at a large moment. With one more debate to go, could someone turn the telescope around?”

DRIVING THE CONVERSATION – Politico’s David Paul Kuhn, “Dem strategists see landslide in the making”: “Four large states McCain once seemed well-positioned to win—Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida—have in recent weeks shifted toward Obama. If Obama were to win those four states—a scenario that would represent a remarkable turn of events—he would likely surpass 350 electoral votes. Under almost any feasible scenario, McCain cannot win the presidency if he loses any of those four states. And if Obama actually captured all four states, it would almost certainly signal a strong electoral tide that would likely sweep the Southwestern swing states—Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada—not to mention battlegrounds from New Hampshire to Iowa to Missouri.

“One month ago Democratic strategist Paul Maslin, who closely tracks the electoral map, thought that perhaps Democrats would win by a couple percentage points. At best, he thought Obama might earn a slight majority as Democrats earned in 1976, the last time the party’s presidential nominee cracked the 50 percent barrier. ‘Now it’s a whole different world,’ Maslin said. ‘The economy is way beyond 1992. In 1980, it was Iran hostage crisis and the economy.”

44 AGENDA -- Michael GERSON, “The President Who Deals with Iran”: “A specter is haunting the presidential race -- and it is not just the economy. It is the specter of a nuclear Iran. Economic downturns are wrenching, but eventually cyclical. Nuclear proliferation is more difficult to reverse, creating the permanent prospect of massive miscalculation and tragedy. America's next leader may be known to history as the president who had to deal with Iran. … [I]f a nuclear Iran is truly unacceptable, we may be left with the use of military force. And this only seems credible under narrow circumstances.

“As Gary Samore, my colleague at the Council on Foreign Relations, points out, Iran can move from breakout capability to the development of nuclear weapons in only two ways. It can do the final enrichment of weapons-grade material at some secretly constructed facility with a few thousand hidden centrifuges -- a difficult and risky proposition. Or it can quickly convert its known centrifuges for such production. This would likely take a few weeks, and require the expulsion of international inspectors. During this short time lag, Iran's intentions would be fully revealed, and the case for bombing its facilities would be strongest. This may be the true test of the next president -- a few days to make one of the most consequential decisions in modern history. It is difficult to imagine why anyone would covet the responsibility for that choice -- but it is necessary to discern who is best prepared to make it.”

THE CRISIS -- The cover of The (London) Times shows a man wheeling a SAFE out of a store: “Is this the safest place to put your money?” News headline is: “Rate cuts overshadowed by spectre of recession: IMF says world is heading for major downturn.”

DANA PERINO: “President Bush called German Chancellor Merkel this afternoon to discuss the various measures that the United States is taking to bring stability to the markets, as well as the importance for all countries to work together to coordinate our actions to address problems facing the global economy. The President also returned a call to [Brazilian] President Lula on the same topic.”

WashTimes, top of page: “Record numbers seek heating aid.”

Dallas Morning News cover is an AP photo of an NYSE trader watching live coverage of Secretary Paulson’s remarks yesterday on four televisions at once. A friend writes from out West: “It’s usually not a good thing when average Americans know who the Treasury secretary is.”

N.Y. Times 4-col. lead, “U.S. MAY TAKE OWNERSHIP STAKE IN BANKS TO EASE CREDIT CRISIS – Injection of Cash – Treasury’s Step Under Bailout Bill Would Mirror Britain’s,” by Edmund L. Andrews and Mark Landler: “Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials. Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks’ balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.

“The Treasury plan was still preliminary and it was unclear how the process would work, but it appeared that it would be voluntary for banks. The proposal resembles one announced on Wednesday in Britain. Under that plan, the British government would offer banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC Holdings up to $87 billion to shore up their capital in exchange for preference shares. It also would provide a guarantee of about $430 billion to help banks refinance debt.”

WashPost’s DAN BALZ –“RESOLVE” INSIDE McCAIN CAMPAIGN – “McCain Campaign Tries To See Glass as Half Full”: “Mark Salter, the candidate's alter ego and confidant, was in the lobby of McCain's hotel [in Nashville] Wednesday, neither grim nor giddy but still shaking out cobwebs. ‘We've been dead before,’ he said. He would know, having weathered McCain's long, wild ride through the primaries and now the general-election campaign. But is there a plan? ‘We can't die again,’ he said. … The overnight focus groups McCain's campaign conducted offered a little comfort. The voters assembled by the campaign said they thought both candidates did well, and now it's on to the next round.

“Mike DuHaime, McCain's political director, said internal campaign polling does not make the electoral map look as bad as some public polls suggest. For example: Asked why, if he has given up on Michigan, McCain has not given up on Iowa, a state that looks strong for Obama in public polls, DuHaime said because the campaign's polling has Obama's lead in the low single digits. … DuHaime said there is evidence that McCain is catching up to Obama in the battle to mobilize voters. The past two weeks, he said, the campaign has contacted more voters, by phone and door-to-door, than the vaunted Bush machine did in comparable weeks four years ago. One week, he said, was 40 percent higher than last year. …[I]nside the McCain campaign there is resolve, which comes from the candidate himself. Whatever difficult days lie ahead, they believe they have seen worse.”

SCOOP – A classified, draft National Intelligence Estimate “Is Said To Warn Of Peril In Afghanistan – Resurgence By Taliban – Corruption, Heroin and an Insecure Border Add to Instability,” according to N.Y. Times front-pager by Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt.

THE BIG IDEA – N.Y. Times’ Peter S. Goodman: “ The Reckoning: RISK IN HINDSIGHT – Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy”: “If Mr. Greenspan had acted differently during his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, many economists say, the current crisis might have been averted or muted. Over the years, Mr. Greenspan helped enable an ambitious American experiment in letting market forces run free. Now, the nation is confronting the consequences.”

THE NARRATIVE – USA Today cover story by Jill Lawrence – “Different styles, same goal: How they’ve made it work – Obama is ANALYTICAL; McCain more IMPULSIVE.”

BIO – WashPost A1, “Moments of Truth – Obama in Springfield -- From Outsider To Politician,” by Eli Saslow: “Obama has built a biography on overcoming obstacles -- on fusing unlikely bonds that help him to adapt and then advance. He knew from the moment he took the oath of office in Springfield that he wanted to move beyond the state Senate, so he set out to orchestrate his rise in trademark fashion: by emphasizing relationships over results; by transforming from an outsider into the ultimate insider. Just as he had before -- as an American child who moved to Indonesia, an Ivy League graduate who worked in housing projects on Chicago's South Side and a black student who enrolled at Harvard Law School -- Obama arrived in Springfield with limited knowledge of his environment and few friends to guide him. He left eight years later with the legislative accomplishments, political savvy and network of allies needed to win a seat in the United States Senate. Obama declined to be interviewed for this article, but conversations with more than a dozen friends and colleagues portray his time in Springfield as a political baptism performed at warp speed, engineered by Obama's vast self-confidence and ambition.”

CASTING AND COUNTING– Bloomberg News, “Obama, McCain Try to Keep Youth Fervor Alive Until Election Day,” by Indira A.R. Lakshmanan: “Youth ‘turnout rates remain well below that of their elders,’ said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who studies youth voting patterns. ‘There's an awful lot of students whose biggest concern is the football game.’ Both parties said this time would be different.”

HOW PSYCHED IS THE DNC? The bottom third of the N.Y. Daily News cover is “LOW BLOW! McCain campaign makes desperate attempt to link Obama to ’70 NYC bombing” – Lead hed on NYDailyNews.com is “MAC GETTING DESPERATE” – by Richard Sisk and David Saltonstall: “a startling statement put out by the McCain campaign from John Murtagh, a Yonkers city councilman and GOP state Senate candidate. Murtagh [referred] to a 1970 firebombing of his family's upper Manhattan home, when his father, New York State Supreme Court Justice John Murtagh, was presiding at a trial of Black Panther radicals. The Weather Underground was suspected in the attack, although no one was caught. ‘Barack Obama may have been a child when William Ayers was plotting attacks against U.S. targets - but I was one of those targets,’ Murtagh said in the statement. Murtagh was 9 at the time; Obama was 8.”

HOW PSYCHED IS THE RNC? The cover of the N.Y. Post is “NUTS! How ACORN got me into vote scam”: “Two Ohio voters, including Domino's pizza worker Christopher Barkley , claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they'd already signed up. Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote ‘10 to 15’ times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others. Claims such as his have sparked election officials to probe ACORN. ... ACORN's Cleveland spokesman, Kris Harsh, said his group collected 100,000 voter-registration cards; only about 50 were questionable, he claimed. As for workers, ‘We watch them like a hawk,’ he said.”

GAIL COLLINS, "Clearing the Ayers," mocks the guilt by association: "In my experience, most State Senate hopefuls are so thrilled at any sign of interest that they would happily attend a reception given by a homeless couple in their cardboard box. But even though Obama was 8 years old at the time the Weathermen were in the news, that house party puts all their misdeeds on his platter. Sarah Palin has been telling her increasingly scary rallies that he is somebody 'who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists.' ... McCain's favorite supporter, Senator Joseph Lieberman, recently called the Obama-Ayers connection 'fair game.' This reminded me that Lieberman once came to a party at my house. It was years ago, when he was still a Connecticut state senator, and we have already established that state senators will go to anything. Still, I can't help but feel that I am not only a potential victim of the new guilt-by-association standard, I am also somewhat complicit in establishing it."

HAVE WE REACHED BOTTOM? BULL MARKET COMING? L.A. Times front page, "Is the stock market ready for a comeback? Fear of stocks, low interest rates and officials' concerted action create the setting for a possible recovery," by Michael A. Hiltzik: "Economists and market strategists willing to call a bottom amid the current market turmoil are thin on the ground, vastly outnumbered by forecasters with distinctly more apocalyptic outlooks. Yet with the Dow Jones industrial average trading at 34.6 percent below the all-time peak of 14,164.53 it reached exactly one year ago today, there are signs that conditions are in place for a sharp reversal of sentiment, some analysts say. For evidence, they cite rock-bottom interest rates, tumbling prices of oil and other commodities and, not least, concerted efforts by central bankers to get the global economy back in gear. ...

"One glimmer of hope came in Wednesday's coordinated rate cut by central banks in the United States and Europe. Many take the action as a signal that international economic regulators are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, when central banks did just the opposite, tightening credit despite an economic slowdown. Further rate cuts may be in the offing. In the U.S., rates already are approaching historic lows. Wednesday's action by the Federal Reserve will drive the prime lending rate to 4.5%, its lowest level in four years and less than half the rate seen during much of the grinding bear market of 1973-74. That will make it cheaper for many people to buy big-ticket items such as cars and furniture on credit.

"Then there's the bailout. Governments worldwide are pumping trillions of dollars into their banking systems, including the U.S. mortgage rescue plan of up to $700 billion. Many national governments are promising to insure all bank deposits and other bank liabilities, and the U.S. could soon follow suit. Central bankers are finding new and creative ways to keep their systems afloat, with the Fed preparing to lend against collateral it would not have accepted two years ago -- or even against no collateral. Another positive indicator for a turnaround is the falling prices of oil and other essential commodities. Although this stems partly from expectations for a global economic slowdown, the trend does make it cheaper for businesses to produce and deliver goods, and it puts more money in the pockets of consumers.

"Some might even see a positive note in the presidential race, in which Democratic Sen. Barack Obama currently leads Republican Sen. John McCain in opinion polls. A 2006 study by Jeremy Siegel, a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, showed that from 1948 through February 2006, annualized stock market returns averaged 15.3% under Democratic administrations and 9.5 percent under Republicans. Had the study been updated to reflect the market's performance since then under President George W. Bush, the discrepancy would have been larger. During that period, the Standard & Poor's 500 index has fallen 23.7 percent."

DEBATE RATINGS – AP, “Second presidential debate watched by 63.2 million: The second presidential debate drew more viewers than the first but still proved less of a draw than the Joe Biden-Sarah Palin matchup.”

TVNewser.com, "ABC Gets Highest Debate Viewership Yet: "ABC was the top-rated network last night during the presidential debate, making it the #1 network for both presidential debates and Thursday's VP debate. ABC and FOX were the only networks to gain viewers from last week's highly-rated Vice Presidential debate, which was tied for the 2nd highest rated debate of all time. In post-debate analysis, ABC averaged 9.92 million Total Viewers, NBC 8.35 and CBS 7.95. The cablers post-debate analysis came in behind CBS, with FNC, CNN and MSNBC placing 4th-6th."

CHATTER: MICHAEL FELDMAN countdown to 40. Tuesday is the day. Any ideas for a Playbook Gift Registry?

SPORTS BLINK – Sports Illustrated cover is clutch hitter Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers: “Baseball Playoffs – SEE MANY RUN – And hit. And laugh. And light up L.A.”

DESSERT: L.A. Times front page, "'SNL' wants laughs, not votes: The satirical show is sharpening its focus on politics, attracting more viewers and generating plenty of criticism. The show will add three prime-time specials before election day," by Matea Gold: "Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of 'Saturday Night Live,' ... and his cast prepare to pull off six live shows in the next four weeks -- including three prime-time specials, beginning tonight ... Viewership greatly increased when the NBC program put the 2008 race center stage, skewering the fawning news coverage of Sen. Barack Obama and spoofing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a cheerfully incoherent candidate. An average of 8.3 million people tuned in for the first three shows this fall, 48% more than during the same period last year and 13% more than during the fall of 2004. That's far more than tune into other politically satirical programs, such as Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show,' which has averaged 1.8 million viewers a night this year. ...

"The latest uproar came this week, when NBC temporarily pulled one of Saturday's sketches off its website, triggering a storm of conspiracy theories in the blogosphere. The skit, a mock news conference, lampooned President Bush and Democratic congressional leaders for their handling of the credit crisis. It also took aim at Herb and Marion Sandler, a real couple who built up their savings-and-loan by offering adjustable rate mortgages, then cashed out before the market collapsed. The Sandlers weren't too happy about the sketch, particularly the caption under their name that read, 'People who should be shot.' The sudden removal of the skit from the show's website prompted conservative bloggers to speculate that 'SNL' had caved to pressure from the couple, who are major donors to liberal causes. The show's online comment board was bombarded with posts accusing it of being in the pocket of the political left. Michaels said the sketch, written by veteran 'SNL' scribe Jim Downey, was temporarily taken down because the executive producer did not realize when it aired that the Sandlers were real people. ... An edited version of the video that omitted the legally dicey elements -- the offending caption and a reference to the Sandlers' 'corrupt activities' -- was re-posted online Tuesday.

"The fact that the latest controversy to swamp the show centers on the availability of an online clip speaks to the extended life 'SNL' has found on the Internet. The show's first Palin skit had been viewed more than 9 million times through NBC.com since it aired Sept. 14, while last weekend's vice presidential debate sketch had been streamed 5.3 million times so far. ... As of Tuesday evening, the writers hadn't been able to start on the main sketch, a spoof of the second presidential debate airing that night. But Michaels had settled on 'SNL' alumnus Chris Parnell to play moderator Tom Brokaw after trying to get either Brokaw himself or NBC anchor Brian Williams to take the role. (Neither was available.) It's unclear whether Fey will make another appearance tonight as Palin, because the show is expected to center on Obama and McCain. But it's likely she'll be on the program again later this month -- as may Palin herself, in a spoof of Fey."

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About The Author : Mike Allen

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for POLITICO. He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush's first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Va., for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times. Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.